RANGELEY – While state and local pharmacy officials scrambled Wednesday to find a pharmacist to operate Riddle’s Pharmacy in Rangeley, customers were supporting owner and pharmacist Joey McLafferty.
McLafferty, 71, had his pharmacist license suspended by the state Tuesday for 30 days because he has been accused of filling prescriptions while under the influence of alcohol and violating other state and federal rules.
The pharmacy stayed open Wednesday after McLafferty had a pharmacist from Gray come to fill prescriptions.
Rumford pharmacist John Bartash Jr. said Wednesday he has agreed to work at the Rangeley store Tuesdays and Wednesdays for the next month to fill prescriptions. Bartash sold his independent pharmacy in Rumford to Rite Aid last year and is now working part time at the chain drugstore.
“I think Rangeley residents need a pharmacy,” Bartash said.
Prescription drugs that were expected to be removed Wednesday by a state pharmacy inspector stayed, instead, at the store.
“The Maine Board of Pharmacy’s role in this matter is to protect the public from unsafe or unethical pharmacists,” Anne L. Head, director of the state Office of Licensing and Registration, said Wednesday. Out of concern for public access to pharmacy services in Rangeley, she said, “While licensing issues are being resolved, the board and the Department of Professional and Financial Regulation are also taking steps within the board’s authority to arrange for the pharmacy to be staffed by a licensed pharmacist on a limited schedule.”
The board set a hearing for Tuesday, July 12, in Gardiner to determine whether grounds exist to discipline McLafferty. It also decided to draft a consent agreement calling for him to voluntarily surrender his pharmacist’s license. If he signs the agreement, the hearing won’t take place.
Customers said Wednesday that they were concerned about McLafferty personally and had never had problems with his service. They were also concerned about the possiblility of having to travel 43 miles one way to the nearest pharmacies in Farmington for prescription medicine if the store were to close.
Betty Ellis Goglia, a longtime Rangeley resident, said Wednesday at the store that she has never seen or heard McLafferty do anything wrong.
“Him being impaired is utterly ridiculous,” she said. “Joey’s a blessing for this town. Who else do you know would open up on a Sunday night if you were very ill? He’s always gone above and beyond to help the community.
“It’s a crying shame,” she said.
“It’s 40 miles to Farmington to get a prescription, 43 miles one way. We’ve got people in town who don’t drive,” Goglia said.
Riddle’s Pharmacy “is an institution, she continued. “It’s been here 66 years. It’s so comforting to know that you can count on Joey anytime, day or night, he’ll be there for you.”
The state had begun investigating the business at the request of Rangeley police. A 16-day audit showed that 1,300 pills were unaccounted for. Three Rangeley teenagers who had worked at the store were accused last month by Rangeley police of stealing and selling prescription drugs. They told police they knew the combination to the safe, a state pharmacy inspector said.
The combination was kept on the back of a bottle of rubbing alcohol against a wall, McLafferty said Wednesday.
“The safe is a very old safe, and I am the only one who can open it,” he said.
McLafferty said Wednesday he followed his father, Joseph, into the pharmacy profession.
“I’ve been a pharmacist here for 45 years,” he said.
He graduated from the University of Maine in 1956 and the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy in 1959.
He helped his father at the family pharmacy, and when he died in 1980, the pharmacy was left to his mother, Lurlene, and a year later, McLafferty took it over.
“I enjoy doing the work, meeting the people and taking care of their needs,” the Rangeley native said.
“You definitely become friends with them,” he said. “We have an elderly population in town, and they have many more needs for medicine. We hope to keep the pharmacy running, definitely.”
McLafferty said Wednesday that he has contacted a lawyer and hasn’t decided what to do about the suspension and the state’s allegations.
“Everybody tells me to fight it, but I haven’t made up mind,” he said.
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